Pre-season camp - it's a team thing

Players, coaches make the most of daily regimen

By Chip Cosby / ccosby@herald-leader.com

In less than two weeks, the University of Kentucky football veterans will be able to return to their off-campus apartments while the young players move into Smith Hall, the newest dormitory on South Campus.

But before they can settle into their cozy digs, the Wildcats players and a few members of the coaching staff must gut it out at the Kirwan I dormitory, a smaller building that was constructed more than 40 years ago.

There, the players are huddled up in smaller rooms with smaller beds, aren't allowed any visitors and must turn in their car keys. They spend around three hours a day in meetings, one hour getting ready for practice (tape, hot tubs, etc.), two hours on the practice field, another hour to two hours in the weight room, and they eat three scheduled meals a day plus a snack.

With summer school over and fall classes not scheduled to start until Aug. 26, there aren't many other students on campus. The players go from Kirwan I to the Nutter Training Facility to the Commons Dining Complex. That's it. The UK football team is truly in its own little world during fall camp.

"It's all about football," said freshman linebacker Qua Huzzie. "You eat, drink, sleep and breathe football."

UK head coach of offense Joker Phillips, graduate assistants Matt McCutchan and Dontae Wright and assistant director of football operations Dan Mears all stay in the dorms with the team during fall camp.

"I've always been one of those guys that likes to get in there and get around the players," Phillips said. "Plus, I get up early, so it's easier for me and the family. I can get up and walk and just come right back over to the complex. You're a football player. This is camp. This is what you love. You see guys down the hall playing cards, playing music, dancing. That's what camp is about, to get away from the general population and come together as a football team."

McCutchan (Kentucky, 2006) and Wright (Miami University, 2006) aren't that far removed from fall camp as players. But if you listen to them describe life as a grad assistant in the dorm, you'd think you were talking to a pair of old men.

"I'm getting less sleep now than I did when I was a player," McCutchan said.

"It's baby-sitting, that's exactly what it is," Wright said. "We're like dorm mothers."

The players don't have that much free time to begin with. Randall Cobb and Corey Peters estimated it to be between 3-4 hours a day. McCutchan said most of the offensive linemen use that time for sleep.

"The O-linemen are usually so tired, they don't have the energy to be running around and playing cards and stuff," McCutchan said. "By about 10 o'clock or 10:15, they're usually out."

As for the rest of the crew, there's usually either a card game going on, NCAA College Football 2010 on the Xbox or music blasting. Often all three are going on at the same time.

That doesn't always make for the easiest of accommodations. Young college students and loud music go hand-in-hand. And a competitive game of cards or John Madden can get loud at any moment.

"You'd think the Super Bowl was going on down there," Wright said. "There's always a bunch of hootin' and hollerin' when the video games are going."

The laid-back Peters said he's just a casual observer of all the camp shenanigans.

"I tend to kind of sit around and laugh at it all," Peters said. "I just chill out and take it all in. I don't have too much energy to waste. You just have to make sure it doesn't go too far or get too crazy. Kids will be kids, and college kids are going to be college kids. You just reel 'em in and then let everybody go back to having fun."

But the downtime during fall camp isn't all about clowning around. There's some serious male bonding going on, even if the players don't realize it.

"It truly brings the guys together," Wright said. "From personal experience and seeing it here, you're kind of forced to hang around and conversate with each other. There's no cliques. It helps team chemistry."

"I get to spend every waking moment with my teammates, and it's cool to get to know everybody on the team that I didn't know," said freshman defensive tackle Mister Cobble said.